A/N: So, here I am posting a few days earlier than my usual month-long breaks since tomorrow I will be leaving for my first break in many, many months and heading to an undisclosed city that may or may not have a colosseum in it, as well as a boatload of beautiful piazzas where I will be enjoying local specialties such as pizza, lasagna and such... I hope you like this chapter - the length of the chapter is out of control, let me tell you. I promise myself I won't do any more than 5k words but then they always end up doubling that. Enjoy...
So, they weren't dead, after all, but, for a moment or two as she sat with her fellow culprits in Snape's office, Izzy kind of wished they were. Because, really, being glared and yelled at by a livid Severus Snape felt much worse than a killing curse as far as her mind could picture it. Especially, she added, with the Carrows lurking in the corner, shooting them looks that clealy said 'I'm going to have so much fun with you lot later'… and not a good sort of fun, she imagined.
"The insolence! The nerve!" Snape yelled in a fury for what had to be the tenth time, pacing in front of them as the four occupied uncomfortably hard chairs in the centre of his office. He looked green with anger and, strangely, not in a figurative way. On the wall, Phineas Nigellus glared as well, shaking his head disapprovingly at them while at the same time sort of smirking in an 'I told you so' sort of way. Scammander, however, regarded them sadly.
Izzy glanced at Ginny, who was slumped against the back of the chair with her arms crossed, and then at Neville, who stared at the stared at the floor, avoiding catching a glimpse of Snape at any cost. Luna, however, looked perfectly calm, as if she hadn't really grasped what was really happening.
"An unacceptable disrespect towards your headmaster," Amycus prompted, purposely making his comment sound more like an insult to Snape than a lecture to the culprits.
Snape, however, ignored him. "Naturally, I ought to expect something like this from a Black," he shouted, taking a clear jab at Izzy. "And of course, this coming from those barbarian twins' little apprentice wasn't that far-fetched either," he added, aiming Ginny a glare. "Longbottom, however…" he shook his head in distaste. "Stupidity seems to have no bounds with you. As for Miss Lovegood…" he looked at her, completely clueless of what to do or say with that one. Part of him actually asked itself if she had any idea of what was going on. "A Ravenclaw ought to know better than… than to associate with such a trio of misfits! Sheer impertinence beyond belief! To think you could possibly get away with invading this office! And what for, might I ask? What for?"
That time, the four of them looked at each other but still didn't say a word to the headmaster, which prompted the Carrows to step closer, looking quite determined. Alecto was the first to act, grabbing Neville by the chin and forcing him to look at her. "Your headmaster asked you a question!" she yelled.
"Leave us alone with them for a minute, Snape. I'm sure Alecto and I can make them loosen their tongues," Amycus suggested.
Izzy gulped, thinking of ways they might get them to blab, each worse than the former. Maybe even about more than they appeared to want to know at the moment… She and Ginny certainly knew enough to get Harry into trouble if they were fed veritaserum or worse… The fact that Voldemort wasn't quite aware Harry was hunting Horcruxes rather than just being on the run was a big piece of leverage on her brother's side. A big piece of leverage they couldn't take away.
"We just wanted to play a prank," Ginny said all of a sudden, making them all turn their faces to her, even Neville with Alecto's hand grabbing his face. The look her friend gave them urged them to trust her judgement but Izzy wasn't still quite sure if even Ginny would manage to convince Snape all they wanted to do was to prank him. "We were annoyed that all Hogsmeade weekends were cancelled and that Christmas break is going to be cut to ten days, so we thought we'd sneak in here during the feast and turn everything into gravestones and fake skeletons. It was just a Halloween prank…"
"They're lying!" Alecto declared, violently letting go of Neville's jaw as if she was trying to detach it away from his face. "Of course they're lying! You know what these little bastards wanted, Severus. Keeping it here was a mistake! We told you so!"
"Alecto is right. Even a bunch of kids can break through the joke you call 'wards'. And they're Potter's friends – everyone knows it," Amycus declared, glaring at them. "You know they were trying to help him by getting the…"
"Enough!" Shape shouted, glaring at them. "I will not say this again after today: it was me who was given that matter to handle, not you. If you think that's not right, I suggest you take it straight to the source of the orders who, I imagine, won't take having his judgement questioned too well. As for getting into this office," he added, turning to the culprits, "I'm sure our… pupils here will be able to tell you getting in was the least of their worries as opposed to getting out. Isn't that right, Miss Black?" he asked Izzy directly, given that she was sitting right opposite him.
"Yes," she said through her teeth, praying he'd buy Ginny's excuse.
"Still doesn't prove they were really here just for 'pranking'," Alecto pointed out. "For instance, where are those fake gravestones at? The ones Weasley told they were turning your things into. I'd say they had more than enough time to have some work done."
Snape pursed his lips for a moment, knowing he simply couldn't avoid that question, and turned his face Ginny. "Miss Weasley?"
Before the redhead could say anything, though, a throat was cleared behind the headmaster's desk, making them all turn to face Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait. "If I may," it said, narrowing eyes at his great-who-knew-how-many-times-great-granddaughter. "I believe I have an answer for that."
Izzy positively froze – the bastard was going give them away. She knew he was. Merlin, if she ever made it home again, she was going to fetch his portrait from the attic and use it as firewood… no, she was going to let Alex draw all over it, trash it some more and then slowly let it burn just so she could throw the ashes down the toilet. She wondered how much a portrait could feel when stabbed…
"Then please, Professor Black," Snape said in a dry tone, "feel free to share."
"Oh, I'm more than happy to," Phineas told him. "Such disgraceful behaviour. By my own blood, no less, I'm shamed to admit," he added, shooting Izzy a look, as if him ratting them out wasn't bad enough. "But I'm glad to say it's Longbottom we have to thank for this little revengeful plan having been anything but successful."
"Longbottom?" Amycus asked sceptically at the same time Ginny stepped really hard on Neville's foot to keep him from asking the same thing.
"Yes, Longbotton," Phineas stated. "That bottomless pit of stupidity – I can find no other adjective good enough to classify him – was trying to cover the office with fake spiderwebs when he ended up tangling himself all over with it. Needless to say, as the gutless moron he is, he shamed the whole male gender by screaming his lungs out as if he was being choked by Devil's Snare and his friends had to come to the rescue. As you may imagine, by the time they managed to banish the webs away without – unfortunately – banishing that squirming excuse for a human being on the way, you were already arriving back."
Izzy had to use all her self-control not to openly stare at the portrait. He was lying for them. Lying and being surprisingly good at it. For the first time in her life, she felt an overwhelming urge to kiss the portrait of a disgusting human being… and then rip it to shreds because he was being such at arse by picturing Neville as a gutless weenie.
"Is this accurate?" Snape asked Scammander's portrait.
It nodded, as they expected it would. "I believe Phineas may have exaggerated his account of the boy's reaction but, yes, it's rather accurate. An unfortunate decision from the students' part but children will be children," he said.
"Children need discipline," Amycus told the portrait, silently ordering it to mind its own business. "We'll handle the punishment, Severus. Alecto and I will make sure they learn to respect their school's head." Seeing as you can't seem to teach them that yourself, it read between the lines. "We'll give them a few nights of detention… a week might be enough, if we put enough effort to it."
Izzy gulped. Yep, they were doomed. They were really doomed beyond salvation. The Carrows were going to smash them to little pieces.
"I'm afraid I will have to decline," Snape stiffly, making them all look at him in surprise and turning the Carrows' faces into expressions of outrage at being dismissed.
"There really is no need for you to waste time with these…"
"Alecto, please remind me whose office was broken into…" The woman didn't respond, which had Snape raising his eyebrows. "Thank you. That will be all. I will be taking it from here. By myself." And he promptly turned his back on them.
Izzy half expected the Carrows'response to be in the shape of a killing curse. For once, she hoped that wasn't the case – better the evil one knew than the evil one didn't and, between Snape and the Carrows, she'd at least been dealing with the first since she was ten, even though most recent developments had certainly upgraded the former Potions Master to a whole new level of evil… Of course, as far as her imagination went, she honestly couldn't picture Snape's worst punishment being much worse than Carrows' mildest.
"You're treading on thin ice, Snape," Amycus said through his teeth before he and Alecto motioned towards the door.
"I'll keep that in mind, thank you," he replied, glaring in disapproval at the rather open words or defiance. "Oh, and please fetch their house's heads. Professor McGonagall and Professor Flictwick. Bring them up to date on this matter – I imagine they would like to know what their students are up to on Halloween."
It might seem like a mild request for anyone else but the Carrows clearly took that as an insult since they closed the door with a bang on their way out. A reminder that Snape was in charge. Izzy really had never been more thankful for Snape and the Carrows's animosity before…
"Foolish, foolish children," Snape hissed just as soon as he found himself alone in the office with the four of them. "All of you. Pranking teachers. Pranking me?" Strangely, whenever he said 'pranking', the word came out with such disgust one might have thought it was a synonym of 'assassination attempt' or something. "The nerve… the audacity!"
The headmaster paced around mumbling to himself, glaring at them and also at Dumbledore's comatose portrait on occasion. All of them could safely say they had absolutely no idea what he was thinking, other than that it couldn't be good.
"Get it into your troublemaking little heads that defying actions like this one are in no way tolerated in this school. And let me assure you that if it weren't for the current… circumstances, you'd be on your way to your dorms in order to pack your belongings and leave this school for good," he said, his tone still boiling with fury. "But as that is not an option anymore, we'll have to settle for the next best thing."
That didn't sound good. That didn't sound good at all. Sure, it was pretty clear Snape was set on not using the Carrows on their punishment but his tone… oh, it was bad. It was really bad. Bad enough that, all of a sudden, she found herself thinking of not quite Carrow-worthy and yet equally upsetting punishments. Like them having to stay at school for Christmas serving detention far away from their families… or being handed over to bodily-punishment-happy Filch… or, Merlin helped them, being locked up in one of the dungeon's supposedly newly-reinstated student cells, not so coincidently close to the Dementor's nightly paths.
"Let me think…" Snape mumbled, pacing around, apparently browsing in his mind for appropriate punishments. "Ah… perfect. You will be serving detention…"
Izzy's heart sunk – she was sure it was Christmas. He was going to take Christmas away. Easter too, maybe… She really hoped Summer wouldn't go too or else she wouldn't be laying eyes on her family again until she graduated. Merlin… Alex would be four by then – Mary would probably speak fluently next time she saw her too. Or maybe it the Dementors. Was it possible they would be serving detention guarded by Dementors? Somehow that did fit into the description of 'next best thing' to expulsion in her mind.
"… Miss Black, are you listening?"
She jumped on her chair and stared at Snape. "Yes… no. I was just… thinking."
"Well, don't. As we've already established, your thinking," he gestured at their group in general, "all of your… thinking, tends to lead to nothing more than stupidity. So do refrain yourselved from doing it. Regularly. I'm sure the world would be thankful." He cleared his throat. "But, as I was saying, all four of you will be serving detention tomorrow in the forbidden forest. And, just to be clear, by 'tomorrow' I mean tomorrow night under the light of the full moon. I'm sure you will be in very good company… howling with laughter by the end of the night, no doubt."
Izzy would herself furrowing her brows. Not because she was disappointed she was going home for Christmas after all or that she wouldn't be serving detention under the Dementors' wing – no, not at all. She did furrow her brows because, for the past few weeks, they'd been charting the moon phases in Astronomy and she was fairly sure – unless she'd gotten the whole thing wrong, which was very possible because it wouldn't be the first time she'd completely mixed up her notes – that full-moon wasn't until the second night of November, which was not one but two nights away. And, while later she'd call herself all the stupidity-related insults she could possibly think of over it, before she could stop herself, she was already opening her big mouth for whatever reason. "Isn't…"
Ginny, always alert, stepped on her foot really hard before she could finish, stopping her just in time. She seemed to be doing that a lot that night. "Isn't full moon too dangerous a night to be in the Forbidden Forest?" she asked, feigning fearfulness. "There could be werewolves loose in there!"
"Well, I suggest you dig around for some silver, then," Snape suggested carelessly. "You will meet Professor Hagrid right after dinner tomorrow for your detention – I'm sure he'll find something to keep you occupied in there until it's at least past midnight because if you step foot in this castle a fraction of a second before the clock hits twelve, you'll be getting an encore performance next month and the month after. And keep in mind that the full moon in December falls roughly around Christmas… we wouldn't want to disturb your little family plans now, would we?"
They didn't respond – instead they just sat there quietly for several seconds until Snape eyed them like they were pieces of inconveniently-placed furniture and told them to go wait outside for their house's heads. "I imagine you wouldn't want to overstay your welcome into this office any more than you already have," the headmaster said dryly, making a careless shooing gesture with his hand.
They motioned to comply almost immediately even though it really irked them to make it easy for him – honestly, the need to get far away from him overpowered wanting to make things are for him by a lot.
Phineas's portrait, however, promptly cleared his throat juts before they reached the door. "If I may… can I have a word with the girl?" He didn't even need to specify which girl for them all to know it was Izzy.
"Make it fast," Snape grunted.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Please let your father know how disgusted I am to be related to your branch of the family. And how badly I'd like to sever all connections to it."
She knew he meant every word. And she also knew he was saying that as reminder of her promise. He wanted his portrait out of their house. And who was she, really, to deny that? "I will. And, trust me, the feelings are completely mutual."
"Lovely," Snape said dryly. "If you're done sharing the pleasantries…" He gestured towards the door.
None of them dared to open their mouths again until they were already climbing down the spiral staircase.
"So," Izzy started in a whisper, "is it just me or tomorrow's…"
"…not actually full-moon," Ginny confirmed. "It's either that or we're definitely failing astronomy."
"So, Snape isn't actually feeding us to the werewolves?" Neville asked uncertainly.
Luna smiled. "That's nice of him."
"No, it isn't," Izzy replied. "I mean, it is nice that we won't be eaten alive but I'm pretty sure Snape doesn't know that. Can you actually picture him being nice to us? I mean, he hates my dad since… ever and Neville's been his favourite punching bag ever since he laid eyes on him. Ginny's marked too, I guess, since he's no fan of the Weasleys and you, well… I guess he has no reason to hate you other than being our friend and, well, not a Slytherin. But still, he wouldn't be helping us. Especially not after catching us breaking into his off…" She paused as, upon stepping out of the doorway usually hidden behind the secret passage leading up to the headmaster's office, nearly crashed into a very furious-looking McGonagall. No, she corrected herself. Not just McGonagall. McGonagall, Flitwick and her mother. For a moment, she felt tempted to back up and walk straight back into Snape's office.
"Breaking into a teacher's office?" the transfiguration master said through her teeth in a frosty tone, eyeing them all in a way that made them want to curl into a ball in the nearest corner. "The headmaster's office? For pranking?" She looked like she just might strangle one of them.
"I am very disappointed," Flitwick said, eyeing Luna in particular. "Very disappointed indeed, Miss Lovegood."
"We weren't…" Neville started.
McGonagall stopped him, though. "I don't want to hear it, Longbottom. Not now, anyway. Tomorrow morning before breakfast I want you, Miss Weasley and Miss Black in my office with a full explanation of what… possessed you to commit such an… atrocious display of recklessness. I want you to use tonight to think of your actions after I take you back to your dorms since for now I am needed back at the banquet before it ends. We can't have the bulk of the teaching staff disappearing on account of such a… such a…" She stopped, shaking her head. "Oh, follow me, then."
"Wait, Minerva," Mia said, speaking for the first time. "If you wouldn't mind…" she gestured with her head towards Izzy, who gulped soundly. "I'd like a word with my daughter."
"Oh, be my guest," McGonagall said before shooting Izzy a look. "First thing in the morning," she reminded her.
Izzy nodded as the old teacher turned on her heel, followed by Neville and Ginny, who shot her sheepish, yet encouraging looks, as if they were telling her to 'hang in there'. Oh, she wanted to hang in there… especially if 'hanging in there' happened to take place far away from her mum because, as much as she loved her, Izzy would jump at any opportunity to avoid a Mia Black lecture. She'd been born to give those, apparently, because they sure brought the whole motherly guilt-production to a max when she really wanted to.
But since making a run for it wasn't much of an option – not to mention that doing so would make her feel like the greatest coward to ever be born (if she couldn't handle her mother's lectures, how could she possibly think she'd ever be able to take on a Death Eater at some point?) – so it really didn't surprise her when, a minute or two later, she found herself stepping into her mother's office.
"What on Earth were you thinking?" Mia asked in a slow, oddly low tone just as soon as the door was closed behind her daughter. Furious, she eyed Izzy with blazing eyes before raising her tone by an octave. "Breaking into Snape's office? What in Merlin's name were you planning to achieve by doing that? And don't say you were trying to prank him because I like to – no, I need to – believe I raised a person smart enough not to do something so idiotic in a time like this."
"We weren't trying to prank anyone," Izzy told her mother. "Ginny just made that up on the spot so we wouldn't have to tell the truth…"
"Regardless of the truth, Isabelle, breaking into Snape's office of all places? And being caught? Do you have any idea of what I thought when I heard the Carrows giving McGonagall their account of the facts? For a moment there, I almost expected to walk in on you being carried out of the school by Dementors!"
"But we weren't," Izzy replied. "Snape just gave us detention in the forest… and he wasn't even good at doing that…"
"You were lucky! You were bloody luck, Isabelle, because the amount of trouble that going against Snape can cause you these days is… well, it's unlimited. He could have handed you over to the Carrows. You've heard the rumours about the kind of thing they do in their detentions. You know what sort of people they are. And what were you trying to achieve, anyway? What could possibly be bad enough to justify covering it up as a prank?"
Izzy hesitated before answering that. She could just foresee the reaction her mother would have. She'd get angry. Really angry.
"Isabelle Kathleen Black, I am waiting," she said in a very Mum sort of tone that Izzy, thankfully, hadn't heard directed to her in a long time. It was usually reserved to Harry when he got into big trouble at school or delayed unpacking his trunk for weeks, as usual.
"," Izzy said really fast.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked. Izzy wasn't sure if she'd actually missed that or had in fact heard and was just making sure she'd gotten it right.
"The Sword of Gryffindor. We were trying to steal it," she told her.
Her mother looked at her in disbelief for what had to be a full, excruciating minute. It didn't take a genius to know that wasn't good. At all.
"What… on Earth for?" Mia asked in an odd high-pitched tone. "Were you planning to stab someone with it?"
"What? No! Merlin, Mum, do you think I'm some sort of psychopath?" Izzy replied in disbelief. "We were trying to take it for Harry."
Mia eyed her in the same way Izzy imagined she would if she'd just told her she was planning to marry the Giant Squid. "For Harry? Why…? How? Did he contact you? Did he ask you to?"
Izzy sighed and, hoping it would help, summed up the whole story from her mother, starting with Nearly-Headless Nick letting them know Snape was guarding something they wanted away from Harry and ending with them getting caught stealing the sword. Mia, for once, didn't say a word through the explanation but her expression certainly didn't show any sign of her warming up to her actions since they were 'justified'. In fact, she seemed to get more and more tense by the second. At some point, Izzy felt tempted to just go quiet before quickly concluded she might as well hand all the facts to her mother.
"… we had to do it," she said. "If they wanted the sword away from Harry, that had to mean it would be useful to him. It's supposed to be his, anyway. Dumbledore said so in his will. Hermione told me at the wedding."
Her mother didn't respond after she went quiet. She just kept eyeing her in silence the same way she had while hearing the explanation. She was angry, Izzy knew. Really angry. And Izzy wasn't quite sure about which part in particular – maybe all of it. Bummer… she'd really been hoping that the fact that they'd been trying to help Harry would get points in her favour…
"You knew about all that – that the sword was here, that Harry might need it – for weeks," Mia started in a dangerously low tone, "and yet you didn't breathe a word to me about it until now? And don't say you've forgotten because I know you better than that."
And there it was. Izzy started to open her mouth to protest but quickly stopped herself, realizing that might not be the best of ideas. She supposed she ought to have expected that…
"Don't you understand that the one reason why I came back into this school was to be here for you?" Mia replied. "To help out when things such as this one come up?"
"Help out?" Izzy asked in disbelief. "Mum, if I told you we were planning to steal the sword before we actually did it, there's no way you'd have let us go on with the plan. And who'd get it for Harry if we didn't? You?"
"Why do you have to say that like it is so far-fetched?" Mia replied.
"Because… because you're Mum. You don't do this kind of thing. You don't… sneak around and steal things. Dad might but you… you're the straight parent. You're Mum."
"Yes, I'm Mum," Mia replied in an irritated tone. "I'm Mum and my job is to take care of my kids. If that involves stealing swords, robbing a bank or going down to hell and back on my own, I'll do it without a blink of an eye. Because I'm Mum. And there is nothing I wouldn't do if that's what needed to be done in order to help you or Harry or Alex or Mary or even your father, for that matter."
Izzy didn't respond to that. She just stood there, avoiding looking her mother in the eye since she could now see that she was not only angry but also hurt. Hurt that she hadn't thought her capable of going to the utmost lengths to look after them. "It would have been worse if you'd done it instead," she mumbled, more trying to convince herself than her mother. "Snape's office is a trap. You'd have gotten caught and Merlin knows what they'd have done to you."
"Merlin knows what they could have done to you," Mia replied.
Izzy pursed her lips. "Nothing bad was done to me. Listen, I'm sorry that I didn't… that I didn't think you might actually help but I'm not sorry we tried to get the sword. It's not fair that Harry has to do this nearly on his own. I'm sorry we got caught, though…"
Mia sighed. "You're relaying far too much on those half-apologies these days," she commented before sitting down on a chair by her desk and letting out a long breath. "Why couldn't I have had calm, well-behaved children?"
"If that's what you wanted, maybe you shouldn't have married Dad."
Mia was tempted to smile at the observation because it was so true – Sirius Black's children couldn't possibly be prim and proper – but she forced herself not to because she was still furious at Izzy. What was she going to do with that girl? "So, you got detention with Hagrid," she said.
Izzy nodded as she sat down as well, occupying the sofa instead. "Only because Snape is convinced tomorrow is the full-moon. He's crossing his fingers so that we end up accidentally serving as a snack for a werewolf."
"Even if it was, he'd be disappointed," Mia couldn't help telling her. "Remus swears there aren't really werewolves in the forest – their human side wouldn't allow them to slip through the school wards even transformed. Same applies to vampires. You could call them cautionary tales, I suppose."
"Well, that's a relief," Izzy replied quietly, looking down at her hands. "I'm really sorry I… I…" What was she apologizing for, again? She wasn't sorry they'd tried to steal the sword and she wasn't sorry they hadn't told her Mum because, if they had, she'd have stopped them. But she was definitely sorry for something. She was sorry she'd hurt her mother with her lack of faith, she concluded. That sounded like too little, Izzy thought. "Would it be really bad if I said I only didn't tell you because I didn't want to give you the chance to say 'no' but that I would have if I knew you wouldn't or that you'd handle it yourself with our help?"
"Yes," her mother told her dryly. "That would be really bad. You know, sometimes you're just like your father. It's like rules only apply to the two of you in part. And then you go and do something really dumb even though you're smart enough to know better. I thought you'd promised him you wouldn't so stupid things such as this one."
"I promised I wouldn't do stupid things unless I needed to," Izzy replied. "In this case, I did."
"I beg to differ," her mother countered.
Izzy sighed. She supposed they'd just have to agree to disagree on that one. "Are you telling Dad tonight?"
Her mother let out a breath before shaking her head. "I've already talked to him today. Besides", she added, "Halloween's not a good day for him. I don't want to make it worse with this."
She did feel a pang of guilt at that. Had the Carrows gotten their way, who knows if she wouldn't be joining the list of reasons why her father detested Halloween…
"We'll talk about this again tomorrow," her mother told her, getting up. "I don't want to keep you too long. Everyone must be back in their Common Rooms by now."
Izzy eyed her for a second. "You're still pretty angry, aren't you?" she asked before getting up.
Mia sighed. "I'm disappointed."
Izzy rolled her eyes as her mother approached. "Everyone knows that's mum-language for 'I'm furious'."
"I'm not furious, I'm disappointed," Mia insisted. "You know better than this, Izzy. This is not a game. If you take a step out of the line here, you could get really hurt. You were lucky today. Very lucky. Maybe next time you won't be. That's what scares me the most. Do you actually think it would bother me if Snape was upset or not otherwise? I only care because he could hurt you very badly. Him and the Carrows. How am I supposed to protect you if you don't make an effort to protect yourself?"
Izzy didn't reply. She simply followed her mother when she opened the office's door and stepped out. They walked quietly together, climbing up scarcely busy stairs and walking along mostly deserted hallways.
The more they walked, the colder it got, leading her mother to cast a patronus as she seemed to be quite suspicious that Dementors might already be wandering around. At some point, Mia circled Izzy's arms with one of her own, bringing her closer – it was around that time that they spotted a Dementor at a distance and, although the dog-shaped patronus had it backing away pretty soon, its unpleasantness made itself noticed enough.
They reached the fat lady's portrait minutes later and only then did Izzy speak.
"Should I be counting on being grounded next time we're at home?" she asked.
Mia sighed. "Depends on what your father has to say… and on what Minerva does with you tomorrow." She leaned forward and placed a kiss on her daughter's forehead. "And, for the love of Merlin, Izzy, don't do something as reckless as this again. You'll drive me and your father insane."
Izzy's only reply was wishing her mother a good night, since she wanted to avoid making promises she couldn't keep. She turned to the Fat Lady and said the password, prompting the portrait to move out of the way, which it did but only after oddly winking and whispering 'well done' to her.
Izzy frowned to herself for a second as she walked into the common room, only to find a bunch of DA members circling Neville and grilling him at all cost. Apparently, the news of their failed incursion into the headmaster's office had somehow already reached them – there was definitely a gossip problem in that school. And, of course, as soon as they saw her arriving with her own long face in place, all attentions turned to her instead, as if they were expecting to get an update on the juicy details from her.
Most were proud of them for trying, others slightly annoyed they hadn't been invited to take part on the 'prank'… either way, all of them wanted to know the details – what sort of prank it was, how they'd thought of it, how Snape's face looked upon finding them. The questions were jumbled and frantic to the point that she was barely able to answer a quarter of them. In the end, giving up, she came up with some excuse about a headache and managed to retire to her dorm, for the first time thankful she'd only find Ginny up there since their chatty dorm-mates had been banned from the school that year as Muggle-Borns… She was definitely the worst person in the world that night… barring Voldemort and his followers, of course.
McGonagall's voice reached her ears just as she touched the doorknob to make her way into the dorm, moodily telling everyone downstairs to go to bed since there would be classes early the following day. There was whining and protesting but she soon heard the sound of steps making their way up the staircase and quickly retreated into the dorm in order to avoid them.
Inside, Ginny stood near the window, looking at the moon on the sky and at the moon chart they'd been drawing up in class. "Okay, tomorrow is definitely not full moon," the redhead said, not even needing to turn around to know she was the one behind her. "Now all we have to do is hope Snape doesn't realize that."
"Even if he does, Mum says Remus told her there aren't usually werewolves or vampires in the forest – it's just something they made up to keep us out."
Ginny raised an eyebrow as she turned around. "Really?"
Izzy nodded. "There's plenty of dangerous stuff in there, though, but I guess saying 'don't go into the forest, you might be marked by a lethifold' isn't as scary as 'you might be eaten by a werewolf'," she explained, sitting on her bed as her friend did the same on hers.
"Aren't lethifolds… or lethifoldi, whatever their plural is, only found in tropics?"
"Maybe – you get my point, though," Izzy dismissed. "We should be fine with Hagrid. We'll probably end up having a decent time with him and all. We got lucky."
Ginny nodded. "We did… although I'm pretty sure McGonagall will hand an extra dose of detention to us tomorrow if we keep the prank version up. She certainly hinted at that…"
"So did Mum. You think we should tell her?" Izzy asked. "I told my mum."
Ginny looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Probably not. Your Mum's a different case – she far more filled into the truth than McGonagall. It doesn't really make a difference that she knows why we did it now that it's done since she knows basically everything, anyway. As for everyone else, until this blows over, the less people who know we were after the sword, the better. It's not that we don't trust McGonagall – it's just…"
"Need to know basis," Izzy finished for her. "Yeah, I get it."
"Good. Anyway, how bad was it? With your Mum, I mean," Ginny asked.
Izzy sighed. "Bad. Then it was worse. Then it was a bit better. Then it was… awkward."
"Complicated, then," the redhead concluded.
"Definitely," she agreed. "And, judging by the crowd downstairs, it looks like we're the new heroes around here."
Ginny groaned in annoyance. "Don't mention it. I practically had to kick a bunch of people on the face to escape. We're not even 'heroes' for the right reasons. All that planning for this… now Harry'll never get the bloody sword…"
"Yeah," Izzy mumbled faintly, looking down. "Maybe if we'd waited a little longer, we'd have figured the wards out…"
"It's done, Izzy," Ginny said, a sense of finality in her tone. "It's done and we can't undo it. No use crying over spilled milk. We need to move forward now. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but well…"
"Move forward how?" Izzy asked.
Her redheaded friend shrugged. "Depends on what Snape and the Carrows come up with next. You'll have to ask Trelawney if it's the future you want to hear about."
"Somehow I feel like I'd rather find out myself by letting it unfold," she stated. "Prophecies are nothing but trouble."
Ginny sighed. "Tell me about it."
Her friend didn't need to say a word for Izzy to be sure she was thinking of Harry… "I'm sure he'll do fine without the sword," Izzy lied for the sake of trying to make Ginny feel better. "I mean, if Dumbledore really needed Harry to get it, he surely would've found a more effective way for him to get it than just leaving it to him on his will…"
The redhead gave her a sceptical look. "It still doesn't change the fact that You-Know-Who really wanted it away from Harry. If that was the case, I'm sure Harry could've really used…" She sighed again and shook her head before rubbing her face on her hands. "As I said, no use crying over spilled milk. And I don't know about you, Izzy, but right now I need to close my eyes and give my brains a rest or else I'll lose my mind."
Izzy raised her eyebrows. "You're telling me you actually think you'll be able to sleep anything tonight?" She felt so bloody awake she doubted she'd bat an eye for days…
Ginny sighed. "If there's one thing you learn when you share a house with eight people, Izzy, is how to sleep no matter how crowded your mind is or how loud they are or how furious you are at them," she told her. "Or, well, at least I did."
"Well, good for you. I suppose I'll be staring at the ceiling all night, then," Izzy mumbled, slightly disappointed she'd have to go through a sure-to-be sleepless night on her own.
Her friend gave her a long look before suddenly standing up and walking over to her trunk. "Well, since you won't ask for it yourself," she said, opening the trunk and fetching something from inside it. "Here," she said, handing her what seemed to be a double scroll.
"Some light reading for the night," Izzy mumbled dryly. "Thanks."
"It's not for reading, idiot. It's for writing," Ginny told her, raising an eyebrow.
"Writ… is this papyrus?" Izzy asked as she unrolled a little of the scroll, finding herself looking at the blank parchment-like surface.
"Straight from Egypt," Ginny told her. "I thought George had told you about this."
Izzy looked up suddenly at the mention of her friend's brother. "George?" she asked, gulping a little.
"Yes. He told me to share it with you if you asked because he'd mentioned it at the station," Ginny explained. "I figured he'd at least explained what it was about… what the hell did you spend so long talking about, then?"
Izzy gulped and forced herself to look at the scroll instead of Ginny. Merlin knew her friend was just the sort of person who could take a fairly accurate conclusion out of the smallest thing… "This and that," she mumbled, thinking back to the conversation, first to the kiss they'd shared, to how close he'd stood and only then to the words spoken. "Wait," she said, suddenly being hit by realization. "Is this the 'secret item'?"
"Secret item…" Ginny repeated before huffing in annoyance. "Figures he'd leave all the trouble of explaining further to me. As if… look, to put it short, you write on that scroll, the messages crosses to another one just like it that the twins have on them. No one intercepts it in between. It's safe and easy."
"So this is how you've been getting news from your family," Izzy mumbled, wondering how she'd never noticed Ginny using it before… on hindsight, she had, Izzy thought, recalling sometimes scribbling around while she used the time to survey the Carrows through the map.
"Yes," her friend confirmed. "And, before you ask, no, it isn't just like the Diary because I actually know who's on the other side. It's still sort of creepy but well…" she shrugged. "We aren't very rich on alternatives these days. So, anyway, grab your ink and your quill and go put your writing up to date downstairs, though you might want to wait until everyone's gone to bed to get it done since this thing is sort of a huge secret. Fred and George are night-owls so they'll probably be checking on it often. Be sure to tell them to soften Mum up for the letter that's bound to arrive. I'd rather be spared from the howler…"
Something in her friend's voice made Izzy feel like she was being ushered out. She wasn't sure why… maybe Ginny just wanted to be left alone… maybe she'd seen how odd her expression had turned upon realizing she could actually contact George and figured it all out. Either way, Izzy obeyed mostly for the sake of letting her friend have her alone time – something told her that, as much as Ginny preached about not crying over spilled milk, she might just be close to doing it herself. Failing to aid Harry wasn't something the redhead took lightly.
Minutes later, Izzy found herself standing in the newly-deserted common room, the fireplace still glistening in the background, holding a bunch of writing material, as well as an old-looking papyrus scroll.
She sat at the table farthest away from the portrait hole, willing to avoid the Dementor's extended influence radiating from the hallways leading to the Gryffindor tower, and started by unrolling the scroll of papyrus over the smooth wooden surface. For a while, she just stared at it.
So, from Ginny's explanation, she was just supposed to write and it would all materialize into another scroll miles and miles away. And, given Ginny had almost surely used it before somehow words would fade or else the surface wouldn't be completely blank. That, she thought, was a relief.
Sighing, she tapped on the table with her quill, trying to think of what to write. It wasn't easy, she supposed, writing to a bloke who, last time she'd seen him, had kissed her for whatever reason… Even worse, she suddenly thought – it was even harder writing to said bloke when she knew very well his bloody twin brother might be the one reading it. Merlin, she thought, eyeing the scroll and wondering for a moment if she shouldn't just resign herself to the boredom of insomnia…
You'll just drive yourself mad, a voice in her head said. He's your friend – friends write to each other… and you don't really have the excuse of intercepted mail anymore with this, do you?
She groaned. The voice – her own conscience – was right. She might as well just do it. She'd just write a letter. A friendly one, addressed to both Fred and George. She wouldn't mention the kiss, she wouldn't make it awkward. She'd just write trivialities and plead Ginny's case. That was enough. So, taking a deep breath, she dipped her quill into the ink bottle and started to write.
Dear Fred and George, she wrote on the rough surface before scratching her head, wondering what to write next.
Apparently, Ginny decided to delegate on me – Izzy, in case you're wondering – the duty of filling you in with Hogwarts news tonight, she continued, letting it flow as casually as possible. Before she could write anything else, though, she found herself staring at the scroll again.
How very lazily cruel of her, she suddenly read on the papyrus. The words were written on handwriting very different from her own so she was sure she hadn't, somehow, been possessed into writing there herself. All of a sudden, she could understand Ginny's mention of the diary, except that time she was fairly sure it was either Fred or George writing back. She surely hadn't expected any of them to write back so quickly – she wasn't sure how she felt about it, actually… She'd just been counting on writing a letter.
Who is this? She wrote.
Well, I was going to say Amun, the dead Egyptian scribe who'd been murdered with the papyrus these scroll came from and had vowed to haunt everyone who dared write on the weapon that had stolen his life, but I guess Ginny ruined the surprise by feeding you too much information, came the reply.
The whole plan brought a smile to her face. Yep, definitely one of the twins, Izzy concluded, although she could see either of them coming up with such an absurd story. In her defense, she wrote, you ought to have shared your plan to haunt me with her. And since I can't actually see you at the moment, I'll just have to ask if I'm talking to Fred or to George.
Now, why would I give away that information? The unknown twin asked – she could perfectly imagine him chuckling madly on the other side. Technically, that gives me all the leverage in this conversation. Maybe I'm Fred, maybe I'm George… or maybe I'm Gred or Forge… maybe I'm both. Or maybe I'm neither.
She huffed before rolling her eyes. Well, you keep your leverage, then. I suppose I'll just keep my words to myself, she wrote mostly for the sake of showing she wasn't any idiot. Talking to faceless strangers… wouldn't want to get possessed or anything like Ginny did…
He seemed to buy her bluff. Merlin, Isabelle. Fine. I'll give you a hint.
Izzy smiled, knowing she wouldn't need it. He'd already give himself away by calling her by her full name. And, she had to admit, even though part of her had been dreading talking to him, she'd been hoping it would be George. Especially since, so far, they were just being… them. Not awkward. Not tense. Just Izzy and George. I'm waiting, she said, mostly for the sake of indulging him.
Well, one of us – and by us, yes, I mean the most incredibly smart and successful joke-shop owners you'll ever meet – is upstairs in our flat, currently celebrating his girlfriend's belated birthday, so I'm pretty sure I'll be sleeping down here in the storeroom tonight because I don't want to hear them going at it all over the place, George wrote.
Izzy snorted. Poor you… I take it all is well with Fred and Angelina, then.
Too well, he replied. What took you so long to get your hands on the scroll? I thought I'd been pretty tempting with the whole 'secret item' thing at the station.
She tensed a little at the mention of the station… From there to the kiss was just a little stretch. She hoped, really hoped, it wouldn't come up. Things were so… normal right then. She liked normal. She needed normal. Well, Hogwarts has been taking up a lot of my time. Plus, you did imply it might burn my face off.
Didn't it?
She snorted – of course he'd ask that. I guess you'll have to wait and see for yourself next time we run into each other, she replied. But I've got to say, this thing is brilliant – did you and Fred charm it yourselves?
We wish, he replied. Bill gave us the scrolls years ago. He brought them back from Egypt for our birthday. We've been trying to copy the charm ever since but ours never make it through strong wards… We gave Ginny one of the originals and kept the other – figured she could use it to communicate with us from Hogwarts. Mum wouldn't have let her go otherwise. Anyway, what's keeping Ginny so busy that you'd have to fill in for her in our daily communications? Not, he added quickly, that I'm not glad to speak or, well, write to you.
Izzy sighed. She was tired.
Ginny? Tired? Are you sure we're referring to the same person? Small, spitfire redhead with an unstoppable demeanour.
Well, she does have a reason to be tired, today. And good for her – I, for one, was driven into insomnia by said reason.
The teasing ceased just like that. She didn't need to see him to know that if he'd been grinning before, as he always seemed to be, now he wasn't. What happened?
She hesitated for a moment. It annoyed her having to speak of that day's events again. And she doubted that would be the last time that week… or that month for that matter. But it was George. He was bound to find out soon enough. Plus, she thought, feeling rather dumb, how was she supposed to plead Ginny's case as her friend had asked if she didn't tell him about it? We broke into Snape's office… and we got caught by him and the Carrows.
There was a long moment before he responded with only two words. Merlin, Isabelle.
She sighed. I know.
Are you alright? What did he do to you?
We're fine. He gave us detention with Hagrid at the Forest tomorrow. He thought it'd be full moon – probably expected us to be mauled by a warewolf over there or something.
That time, he didn't respond for several seconds. It made her uneasy trying to picture what he was doing on the other side. Pacing around? Punching stuff? Laughing at their failure? Are you there? she asked.
What did you have to get caught for? Wasn't that the one thing I asked you not to let happen? I thought you were good at this, Isabelle. Sneaking around, I mean…
I am good at this! She wrote. But we got trapped! Snape's office had some weird wards that let us in but wouldn't let us out… We didn't know until it was too late. We never stood a chance.
Merlin, Isabelle…
Something in the way the words sounded in her head made her heart warm. Sure, she couldn't actually hear him or even see him for that matter… but she could tell he was concerned about her… them. About them, she corrected herself. George Weasley, eternal joker, was concerned. It's okay – we're fine. They didn't really hurt us or anything… McGonagall looked like she might. Which reminds me - I'm supposed to ask you to soften your Mum up for the letter she's bound to get about this whole thing.
Softening Mum up? There's no softening Mum up about something like this. If anything, I might intercept it, George informed her. But she's going to find eventually and then she'll take Ginny's hide and turn it into a coat.
Lovely, Izzy wrote dryly. Just do what you can for as long as you can. McGonagall told us to report into her office tomorrow morning, so I don't think she'll send anything until after…
Oh, the morning call, George wrote like it was a big thing. She did that to Fred and I hundreds of times. Not a good sign, let me tell you – means she's pissed off enough that she wants you to spend all night agonizing over what you did and intends to use that time to think of all the different sorts of punishment she can give you before being softened up by your side of the story.
Great, she sarcastically wrote with a groan.
Relax, Isabelle, it's not that bad. Not when you have the chance to confer with dear old me, someone who happens to know every trick in the book in what comes to dealing with McGonagall's punishments.
Because you've been through so many of them…
Proudly, he assured her. Anyway, show up really early. As in, straight after curfew's up early. And look completely miserable – like something just ate your puppy. She'll take that as regret. Don't bother with saying stuff like 'Snape had it coming' or anything because it won't work. Just stick with arriving early and looking like you haven't slept at all. You might just get away with a slap on the wrist… maybe a few weekends cleaning the loo. Little advice if you get that: smell-repelling charms. They're your friends, trust me.
Izzy sighed. I suppose that fact that she thinks we broke into the office to prank Snape won't help, she wrote.
Didn't you? He replied.
She hesitated for a moment. For all intents and purposes. Ask me about that after this whole war thing is over.
Fine. I'll just add that to the list.
The list? she thought. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she'd told him a lot of stuff without really revealing much. She'd always tell him to ask her at a later time and he always went along with it. He'd never pressured her for the details she didn't want to give away. She supposed that was one of the reasons why talking to him was so easy, even before the whole 'crush' had come into play. Maybe that fact had even contributed into creating the crush in the first place.
Enough of this, Izzy wrote. Tell me how things are on that side.
Well, nothing too relevant. Plenty of order packing, some fits of crying from Mum every once in a while, all the logistics of setting up a pirate wireless station…
A pirate what now?
That story served to fill another half hour of writing back and forth, which only stopped when, after a long pause, during which George took a while to write back, he suddenly announced he had to go because Lee Jordan had just shown up completely pissed on firewhiskey on his doorstep, sobbing about his girlfriend (the twin's usual cashier, Verity) who'd gone on the run a few weeks before.
He's usually fine, especially when we're working on setting up the station, but when it gets him, it gets him, George explained. I should go and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. We'll do this again tomorrow, okay?
I've got detention, she reminded him.
I meant after. I want to make sure you're not being digested by whatever creature devours you in the forest, he informed her.
Thank you so much for the picture, she wrote sarcastically.
You're welcome, he replied – she could practically see him snickering around. But I mean it, Isabelle. If you don't show up, I'm afraid I'll have to send a search party after you. You wouldn't want that, would you?
You're an idiot, she wrote.
Gladly, he replied. Good night, Isabelle.
She waited a few seconds before writing back. Good night, George.
And, just as soon as she closed the scroll, promptly opening it back to make sure all evidence of their conversation was gone, Izzy found herself yawning, suddenly sleepy. She raised an eyebrow. Had he somehow cured her insomnia?
She shook her head a moment later. Of course he hadn't – he wasn't even there. The world just didn't work that way. Silly girl, she told herself. Silly girl with her crush.
They shared another odd little written conversation the next day, as promised, simply, she told herself, for the sake of him not fulfilling the promise of sending a rescue mission if she didn't send back a sign of life. Of course, she forced herself not to overthink the fact that the conversation had extended far beyond her detailing their adventures in the forest and informing him that they were, indeed, in loo-cleaning duty for the whole month's Saturdays, courtesy of McGonagall…
She made a point of giving herself a series of made up excuses to justify the fact that two days later, than again four and then again seven, she found herself talking to him again. By the time, maybe a couple of weeks later, she realized they'd been writing to each other every other day, she gave up on giving herself excuses.
She was also thankful that she and Ginny had long ago given each other free reign to go through the other's things as much as they wanted without having to ask, or else she was sure her friend would've had quite an amount of questions as to why she so often asked to borrow a scroll of Papyrus that only served to communicate with her brothers – questions Izzy didn't want to answer. Still, she had to wonder if her friend had noticed as, without explanation, she'd started sending her daily updates to her family in the morning instead of at night, when Izzy and George usually spoke… or rather wrote. Either way, Ginny never brought up the matter, not even when Izzy started borrowing her writing ink ridiculously often as she kept running out of hers thanks to the long written conversations with George – she did, however, get a box of never-ending self-inking quills from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes in mid-November as an 'early birthday present' even though her birthday was more than a month away. It was hard not to wonder if Ginny hadn't set George up to that.
They'd talk about everything and nothing and never get bored of it even though sometimes those conversations would last for over an hour. Their kiss, she couldn't help noticing, wasn't mentioned once and she didn't dare bringing it up and potentially ruining that comfortable friendship they were cultivating.
She'd tell him about what went on in the school, mostly the DA-related parts, and, in worse days, she'd allow herself to tell him about the fears she couldn't bring herself to share with Ginny or Neville since they were all in the same boat. In return, he'd tell her she was going to be fine, while constantly filling her in the things that went on at the shop and in the Order, always in laugh-filled narrations. She especially liked George's account of Tonks's hormonal antics and bizarre behaviours ("She ate a strawberry jam and broccoli sandwich! In front of us! That was wrong in so many levels!"), as well as his detailed tales concerning the set-up of their yet-to-be-aired pirate station, namely one occasion when Lee Jordan had nearly been strangled to death by some cord he'd tried to charm while putting the equipment together ("He was never in any actual danger… although his lips were turning sort of blue."). She was sure if someone walked in on her during one of their writing back and forth sessions, she'd be locked up as insane over randomly laughing like no one seemed to do these days.
As November passed and the snow-covered December arrived, George started to drop hints about some surprise her father was setting up for her and her mum but, as much as she begged and insisted that she hated surprises (just for the sake of getting him to blab) he'd never cave and tell her, instead repeatedly saying that she just had to wait and see. Somehow, she got the feeling that he might be part of the surprise as well, or else he probably wouldn't be so determined to keep her in the dark.
It wasn't until the 15th day of December, her birthday, on which George left her an earlier than usual message consisting of a really messy drawing of a birthday cake (she could safely say her two-year-old brother was better at drawing than him) with sixteen candles on it and a very apologetic message saying that Kingsley had scheduled a last-minute Order meeting for that night, meaning he likely wouldn't be able to talk to her that day, that she actually grasped though her disappointment the fact that those days she spent a great deal of her time (a very great deal) looking forward to those little stolen moments with George, even if they were still miles apart… And when, about ten minutes before midnight, he ended up surprising her with another message (while she was finishing a late charms assignment and still obsessing over the damn scroll of papyrus), she found herself smiling until her face physically hurt.
She'd only notice days later how, that one time, she hadn't been so quick to dismiss those feelings as the deliriums of a silly teenage girl with a crush. And then she found herself wondering if she wasn't in fact more than that…
A/N2: So, I guess I don't need to add anything to this last part except... surprise! I hope you liked the chapter. Feedback is welcome! Review!